Sydney Clark

Res Life Seeks to Change Campus Culture

Spring Hill College- “About six or seven years ago, Residence Life was hated so much

that students would throw beer bottles at staff members. We’ve come a long way since then,”

said Joy Morris, Director of Residence Life, on Aug. 31.

This week marks Morris’ first year as the head of Res Life, but her job has been no walk

in the park. “It’s been a trying past year. I walked into a lot of broken processes, a broken

staff…just everything broken. Students had such a bad taste in their mouth about Res Life,” said

Morris. Prior to the start of this school year, however, the department looked noticeably

different.

Over half of the department was replaced with new staff members, including Assistant

Director of Residence Life Holly Banning, Associate Director Johnny Hohenstein, Area

Coordinator Joan Wilson and Area Coordinator Zarana Adial. The only current staff member

who remained was Area Coordinator Zia Felder, who came to Spring Hill last October. Morris

summed up her reasoning for hiring a brand new staff. “It’s about fit. If you don’t like people,

students and engaging with them, then you’re not setting yourself up for success at Spring Hill.”

One of the major issues that Morris noticed with previous professional staff members was a lack

of accountability. “You’ve got to have certain expectations, and the expectations were way too

low…the bar needed to be set much higher,” said Morris.

Last school year, the Student Government Association sent out a survey to students via

email, regarding the Res Life and Public Safety departments. “Res Life got hit hard. Over 90

percent of all of the responses from students were conduct-related,” said Morris. She explained

that that people see Res Life as the “face of conduct.” This is due to the fact that Resident
Advisors are the ones who have to document students for policy violations, such as underage

drinking on campus.

Morris, however, stated that the Res Life department is not the face of conduct. “Our job

[as a department] is to make sure that [students] are safe and that [they] are maintaining a safe

environment in the residence halls. [RAs] are not out to get somebody in trouble.” Sophomore

Jenna Cambias responded to this and said, “I think that [Resident Advisors] can be very

understanding of [various] situations. However, I think that we all need to be more

compassionate for different things that happen in our lives, which will help us prevent making

similar mistakes.”

One of Morris’ main goals this year is to shift the culture on campus, regarding the Res

Life department. More specifically, Morris hopes to establish some type of distinction between

Res Life and Public Safety. Morris asked, “How can we begin to create a division or a line that

says that Res Life is not the police on campus?” She understands that there will be challenges

ahead, but she has complete trust in her staff, especially the RAs. During RA training this past

August, the department focused and worked hard on altering the mentality of how RAs are seen

on campus and how they treat residents. In training, RAs were taught that an individual’s safety

should be the most important factor, in any given situation. “[RAs] are [ultimately] looking to

see if people are safe, if they need help or if they need any resources,” said Morris.

New Implementations for Commuters

This academic year, Res Life introduced a Commuter Advisor to serve the commuter

population on campus. Junior Gabrielle Brumfield was chosen for the position, in addition to

being an RA in Portier Place. Morris stated that the school struggles to work on the retention rate

with commuters. “Sometimes, it’s hard for [commuters] to get engaged on campus because
[Spring Hill] is a residential environment. It’s easy for a commuter to leave campus after class

and not come back for extracurricular activities. [Commuters] aren’t aware of all of the resources

available on campus.” According to the Common Data Set from the 2016-2017 academic year,

75 percent of undergraduate students were residential; therefore, 25 percent of students were

commuters. Within the freshmen class, 83 percent of students lived on campus, and 17 percent of

students lived off campus.

This school year, however, the percentage of first-year commuters is likely to boost. The

Admissions Department reported that this year’s freshman class brought in the largest commuter

population of 125 students. Both Toolen Hall and Walsh have an entire floor that is empty due to

the increase of commuters. Assistant Director of Admissions John Hollingsworth said the rise

was due to Admissions having a “strong interest in the Mobile area this year, which led to a

much higher number of local students.” Hollingsworth added that he thinks that a “good portion

of local students were seeking a school with that small, personal touch, that also gave them the

option of living at home. [Admissions] is excited to have a strong number of commuters

complement our residents on campus this year.”

Brumfield is thrilled about the new position and hopes that commuters will take

advantage of this unique opportunity. “In order to ensure that everyone is receiving the same

support from the Hill, it was vital to have a Commuter Advisor. Even though commuters do not

live on campus, we want them to feel at home because [Spring Hill] is their school too!”

Brumfield touched on some of the goals that she has, including building a “bridge

between [residents] and commuters, thus establishing a stronger community.” She also plans to

keep commuters informed about upcoming campus activities and events. Additionally, Portier

Place is now available for commuters to utilize so that they can have a place to study and relax in
between classes. Morris ultimately hopes that this new position will “really help with the

retention efforts of commuter students and help them find their place on the Hill.” Residence

Life is geared up and ready to take on the new school year. Morris concludes, “Yes, I do think

we made progress last year. I hope that we continue [to make progress] because there’s a lot still

to do.”